“The Queens“ A movie, still in post, from first time director Annie Yi (Yi Neng Jing)

OVisual Effects Supervisor for the film, during most of 2014. Release schedule itself would make an interesting story, was moved several times even after initial marketing with dated posters, etc. Hired during pre-production to pull off some tricky shots, primarily the open. This open was to be a continuous shot, but for that we needed the cooperation of the the DP for the hookups, the overlapping of the several different camera moves. There was so much going on, so many extras and cars on that night, on a very important street downtown Shanghai, that we had to let go of some of those expectations. Most serious was getting from the large crane move to a handheld shot, seemlessly. I was very nervous since the DP would not allow any sensible options such as going behind a moving car or person. So we ended up with extras in the wrong place where the shots came together. Not much we could do, but in fact we worked long enough on it so that most people wouldn’t notice the mistake. The camera was to come out the hotel room and through the window, but again the hookup couldn’t be made. But with all this the opening was still successful visually.

The other big challenge was to make a rooftop party (a kind of Academy Awards show) look realistic with added projections on walls and lights up into the sky. We shot lots of drone footage up over the buildings and over the river. Then added the graphics and video in post.

Here is the director, Annie, doing some self promotion for the film. We are briefly in there at a meeting. It’s a good overview of our locations.